Tiara's Story
by Silver Sandals
Summary: Fanfic for Kage Baker's Doctor Zeus Incorporated series. A fairy tale under the hill. Princess Tiara Parakeet, Lewis, implied Lewis/Edward/Mendoza.


FANDOM: Kage Baker's Company series

CHARACTERS/PAIRINGS: Princess Tiara Parakeet, Lewis, implied Lewis/Edward/Mendoza

SPOILERS: Allegorical fairy tale spoilers up to the last book

RATING: G

TITLE: TIARA'S STORY

* * *

Once upon a time (said the girl,) there was a queen, and she wasn't old and fat, she was young and tall and beautiful as the sun.

(You can't have ever seen the sun, the slave interrupted. It would hurt your eyes. Shut up, said the girl, I know how beautiful it is.)

The Queen wanted more than anything to have a daughter. She thought if she could only have one she would love it more than everything else in the whole world. She would give it beautiful dresses and the best food to eat and pets and clever toys. So she went to a group of wise and mysterious magicians who, it was rumored, could give you your heart's desire.

They gave her a pill to eat and in three days she had a little baby! And it was the beautifulest baby in the world. And it grew up into a beautiful little girl.

(Fairer than Helen, said the slave. How would you know, said the girl. You're blind. I know, he said, and his trembling hands found her face.)

But the Queen had made a bargain with the cabal of magicians, though she didn't know it, and after the girl was born her mother was spirited away to a cavern under the ground, and preserved lifeless in a coffin paned with the most perfect glass; and there she waited for her handsome prince. And oh, dear slave, don't worry; don't you know that after seven years, the prince found her, and waked her with a kiss, and they lived happily ever after? So don't cry. Oh, please don't. You must be quiet so you can hear the rest of the story.

For don't you wish to know what happened to the little girl? I'm afraid this part of the story isn't as nice, so you must be brave. After her mother was stolen away, the little girl had to go and live in a terrible place under the ground, with small people, and a small fake fat mother who hated her and a small horrible Uncle who stroked her hair and petted her like a doll.

But, oh! The little girl outwitted them. She ran away, down into the very bottom of the hill, and there she found a beautiful slave, who'd been beaten so terribly, he couldn't see or move. The little girl tended to the slave and stole food for him and gave him water, and gradually he got his arms back, though he still couldn't see, though it didn't really matter because he had come from Up Above, and so probably couldn't see very well in the dark anyway.

(True, said the slave, having recovered himself somewhat, attempting cheerfulness.)

He couldn't see, but oh, he could speak! He'd been a collector of stories, up above, a traveller of those green and rainy countries, and he told her every story he could remember, stories of magical places, hot with giant creatures called elephants and cold with castles rising to the sky. He told her of every hero in the history of the world, every clever merchant's daughter, every wicked grand vizier. And then one day he told her his own story, how his parents had sold his soul to the magicians' cabal when he was just a child, how he'd collected stories for them for thousands of years. And then he told her about how he'd fallen in love with a beautiful queen and her prince. He told her about the Queen's imprisonment in the glass coffin, and the princess felt instinctively that the queen was her mother. She didn't remember the queen's face, but she imagined it, and even more vividly she imagined the face of the gallant prince. And she knew they had to be her real parents, because of course she couldn't have come from those small ugly people she knew as Mother and Uncle. Surely if he was really her uncle he wouldn't look at her like that and chase her and call her names.

But you mustn't cry, darling, because don't you know, the gallant prince came and rescued them too! And he'd already saved the queen, so she was there, and she cried bitter tears over the poor blind slave, and when the tears touched his eyelids he was healed, and could see again, and he was with his loves, and they all kissed each other very happily. And they all recognized the princess as their daughter, and took her to London and bought her fine clothes, and they were never bothered again by any wicked magicians or little gray people, and always they lived in the sun and danced under the moon.

(What do you think of my story? the girl asked.

I'd like to go to London, said the slave.

Let's go together, she said. And so they promised each other they would.)


End file.
